Torque
by Rocket Owl
Summary: The Dark Warrior Project comes to fruition and the Baron has a new right hand attack dog, Keira is forced to work with the Underground to get her friend back and to save Haven city. Without the Precursor's blessing, however, it'll take all her skills just to stay alive as she follows a destiny not meant for her.
1. Prologue

**Author's Note: **yeah yeah i know guardian is on hiatus im so sorry. i get sidetracked easily. okay so this fic could never have come into fruition without the help of Blu and Krocatoo. go check out their tumblrs (bluandorange and krocatoo, respectively). super short prologue but we'll get to the good stuff soon.

the usual **disclaimer**, i don't own jak and daxter or any of it's characters, i just thought keira got shafted by naughty dog so im rewriting the story with her as the protag. here we go

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**Prologue**

_2 Years Earlier_

The ground was hard and cold and artificial. The air tasted like it had been laced with tar. The smell was even worse. And the noise- Precursors, it was almost overwhelming. And so many _people_. More than had ever lived in Sandover, more people than she had ever seen before in her life.

Keira leaned back under the overhang of the large metal building, watching in silence as they walked across the enormous streets in droves, though most held their heads down and avoided eye contact even amongst each other. Those that didn't walk flew above the pedestrians on vehicles that looked suspiciously familiar. Unfortunately, they were about the only familiar things she could find. Jak, Daxter, her father, even the rift rider itself, all were gone. The latter was in pieces, blown up after they'd flown into the face of that... monster, and scattered all over this place. She still held one of the cogs from it's internal mechanisms in her hand.

Her father's last words hadn't been helpful. Hadn't even been directed at her. 'Find yourself, Jak'? What was that supposed to mean? Where had they all gone? Were they safe, had she been the only one to make it entirely through the rift and end up in this place? A tremor of uncertainty shook her and she frowned to herself, squeezing the cog hard enough that it left imprints on her palm.

She'd never been alone before. She was injured from her landing – her back and shoulder ached periodically as if to remind her of the hard fall she took – and this whole place was strange and unfamiliar. There was no one to help her. No Daxter to lighten the mod with his stupid jokes or her father to give her advice or Jak to save the day. Just her and her and what she wore on her back.

Keira trembled again.

What on earth was she going to do?

–

It was past noon when Keira started coming up with a plan. Hungry and hurt and tired and _lonely_ as she was, with no way to fix any of these things, her mind started working at her problems like it was a puzzle. She was always good at those; she'd built the zoomer, after all, had worked out the cages and traps that had held the eco sages for Jak to be able to break them open.

Problem 1: Food. There were a few street vendors and some shops along the roads, and a bazaar off through an underpass looked like it had some stalls too, but they were using currency that she had never seen before, so she'd be unable to buy anything. That left stealing or trying to sweet-talk a shopkeep.

Problem 2: Injury. She assessed herself thoroughly and came to the conclusion that it was mostly bruising and a bit of scraping along her back, where she'd skidded on the concrete. Overall, she'd been lucky, and only needed time to heal, assuming she was able to feed herself and find someplace to rest.

Problem 3: Shelter. Tied in with her money problem. She didn't trust any of these strangely dressed people to provide her a place for the night for free, and she had nothing to pay anyone with.

The logical solution, then, was to find a way to earn money to fix all of these things. Seemed simple enough to her, and it was at least a _plan,_ which was more than what she had half an hour ago. The only issue was that she wasn't sure what she could do in this world that would give her the money she needed. She couldnt' perform quests like Jak and she didn't have her father's botanical prowess.

...But she _did_ have her mechanical expertise. And if the appearances of the various types of zoomers were anything to go on, they were probably similar enough to her A-Grav prototype that she'd be able to figure them out with relative ease. Or at least, so she hoped.

The pictures along the walls and being projected off of the sides of the buildings around her, made of moving light or paint on paper, showed many different things. Some for recruitment for something called 'The Krimson Guard,' something related to a clothing store of some sort, a few advertising a bar in the 'docks', wherever that was, and most importantly for her, a rather large one that spoke about zoomer racing at a place called the Stadium.

Keira approached the sign and looked it over. A racing track, then, and despite herself her little fifteen-year-old heart quickened with excitement at the very concept. When she'd built the A-Grav a few months ago she hadn't even been sure it would be ready to fly, and yet here in this city the denizens had already worked out a sport. Surely they'd need a mechanic?

Taking note of the address on the bottom of the sign, Keira flagged down a passerby, got directions, and set off down the dusty street.

–

The stadium itself was one of the biggest, grandest structures she'd ever seen. And after her demonstration to the head mechanic, it was now also her home.

Farley, a tall, heavyset woman in her late fifties, had been skeptical when Keira showed up on her doorstep looking for work and she clearly had thought of her as barely more than a child who'd gotten it in her head to run off from home, but after some quick thinking to invent a story of losing her family – which wasn't entirely untrue – she'd offered to give her a chance.

She'd taken Keira around to one of the smaller garages on the side of the structure and had told her that if she could repair one of the busted zoomers stored there by the end of the day, she'd get the job. Farley had intended to leave the girl there for a few hours to keep her safe and out of trouble before gently nudging her out the door, but to her surprise the teen just picked up a tool box, opened up the chassis correctly, and just studied the inner workings. Then, deliberately, she set to work, carefully and delicately fiddling around with the guts of the machine, and an hour later Keira had presented the now-fixed zoomer to be inspected

Farley gave the nervous girl an appraising look. She was no pro, but she had talent, and had clearly been around vehicles before. And even though the zoomer that she'd fixed almost didn't start up, Farley knew that given time with it the girl would probably be a damned good mechanic.

"You earn your keep, okay?" Keira nodded at the elder woman. "Tell you what, if you help me out around the shop, take on some of the chores 'round here, I'll let you stay in this garage. It's got a little apartment attached to it. Once you're on your feet you can start taking your own clients and working for your own team. Then you can start paying me in cash. Besides, I'm getting too old for this stuff, so new blood's always welcome."

Keira straightened up further and nodded again. "I won't let you down, ma'am."

"I'm sure you wont." Farley smiled and held out the key for her to take. "Tomorrow morning, you be in my garage at eight'o clock sharp, yeah?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Just Farley, sweetie. Now go get cleaned up, you look like your came out the rear end of an exhaust port. I've got chilli on the stove I can share with you, skin 'n bones as you are."

And thus, Keira had ended up warm and fed and with a place to call her own by nightfall. And she'd done it without Jak or Daxter or anyone else. Because of that she knew she'd survive. She _had_ to, because she had to rebuild the rift rider to get all of them home.

The cog from the original rift rider now sat on some twine around her neck and as she sat on the edge of the stadium, high above the city, she ran her fingers over it. A reminder of her goal. She would work on it whenever she had time, would keep an eye and ear out for the others, and when they were all ready, they would go home to Sandover and leave this polluted, crowded place behind.

Keira could do it. She _knew_ she could.


	2. Chapter 1 - I Know That Voice

**Author's Notes:** the response for this has already been really amazing. Just. Wow. Thank you guys I appreciate all the support. Also, to clarify! I have tweaked the ages for Keira, Daxter, and Jak by a smidge to make them a little older. She's 17 here now instead of 15 or 16, Daxter is the same age, and Jak is 18. other than that, this should be pretty straightforward!

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**Chapter 1**

_Present Day_

"Ugh!" The thrown wrench easily crushed the metalbug that had been skittering along her work bench but sent the rest scattering for cover over the sides and into the vents, the only thing visible being the slight glow of their gems. Keira made another noise of disgust and rubbed the bridge of her nose, eying the splatter of bug guts, small skullgem, and dark eco that the creature had left behind. Great, just what she needed. A damned _infestation_.

A lone metalbug was not that dangerous, or even much of a problem. All it took was a well-timed boot or something else with weight to kill them. But when they swarmed they could wreak havoc, chewing through metal and wires and leaving dark eco residue everywhere. Not to mention the fact that in groups they could overwhelm and kill the unwary. As annoying as it was, Keira knew she wasn't equipped to deal with this new problem, and as much as she'd rather not she was going to have to shell out cash to get it fixed.

Farley laughed when Keira called her up, although it was more sympathetic than mean-spirited. Still, she assured the younger woman that there was a reputable exterminator that she could call up and gave her the comm number.

"I hear their newest recruit single-handedly dealt with the biggest infestations in the city, too, all the way up to the Palace. You should be able to get your money's worth."

"At least that's something." Keira grumbled, glancing back into her garage. Already she could see the little yellow glints creeping back out from their hiding spots. "Thanks, Farley."

The guy who answered her call to Kridder Ridder Extermination Company seemed a little eccentric, and he reminded her a bit of her father, but he agreed to send out his best employee to her garage to fix up her bug problem for her. Nothing left to do but to sit outside away from the pests and wait for him to show up.

Keira sighed and sat down on the curb, resting her chin in her hand and drumming her fingers on her knee. With the next round of races coming up within the next couple of months she had lot of work to do if she was to finish the zoomer for her team- and hell, to find someone to actually _race_ for her. Commander Erol was a good customer when he wanted his ride fixed up but he had his own mechanic this season, so she had to look elsewhere if she wanted to keep her garage open in the Stadium. Not to mention her work on the Rift Rider, which had to be put on hold _again_ while she worked out how to keep her job going.

Thus, this buggy interruption didn't do much for her mood.

When the sound of a scooter reached her nearly forty minutes later, coming to a stop about two meters away, she looked up and huffed. About time. As she stood she opened her mouth to start asking what had taken the guy so long before stopping short and staring; a very familiar orange rodent had hopped off of the bike and had begun pulling out gear from a compartment in the back of his ride.

"Alright, where're the bugs?" She _knew_ that voice. "And let me tell ya, the pay better be _darn_ good for this, because I just about got my tail kicked in by that metal creep on the last job and I'm _still_ sore so you're lucky you even got _Orange Lightning_ out here for this-"

"Daxter?"

The ottsel stopped and stuck his head out from around the scooter, blinking at her, before he shouted in absolute glee and ran up to leap into her arms.

"_Keira!_" Her hands came up reflexively as she caught him and he buried his face into her neck, holding the front of her shirt tightly. Oh yeah, it was him alright. "Precursors, it's good to see you! You would not _believe_ the crap I've had to deal with the last few months!"

It was almost surreal. Two years without seeing hide nor hair of him, of _any_ of her companions, and then suddenly he showed up more or less on her doorstep. Was this really happening, or had she gotten exposed to too much dark eco from the metalbugs and was hallucinating all of this? After a few moments of simply holding him, feeling his warm fur and coming to the conclusion that this was, indeed, real, she tightened her grip and hugged him close.

"It's good to see you too, Daxter." _Very_ surreal. But very good.

It didn't take long for him to squirm back from her, though, and she let him hop down from her arms so he could look at her, and vice versa. If she didn't know better she'd say he'd grown a little taller, and his stance had changed from slouchy and utterly carefree to something a bit more alert and upright, but he still had his cocky little smirk and quick tongue. It was a comfort to see.

"Looks like you've been busy. A gig at the Stadium, huh? Guess you always were good with stuff like that." Daxter looked past her at her garage and winced when he saw the metalbugs. "Yeesh, you weren't kidding about the bug thing either."

"Yeah, it'd be nice to get those things _out_. I'm surprised though. _You_ being the exterminator?"

Daxter glowered as he pulled on his backpack, belting his gear into place while he explained. "Eh, I got forced into this bug wrangling crap the last few months by a guy named Osmo, and then one thing led to another and I turned out to be pretty good at it. And then I figured I'd need to go find you 'n our boy Jak, but then I ran into this creepy sleazy guy named Kaden, who turned out to be a metalhead in disguise, and-"

"_What?_"

"Oh, uh, yeah. Turns out that he was actually a spy for the metalheads. It's all good though- yours truly took him down without a _single_ scratch. Now, lemme just get ridda those pesky bugs in your shop 'n call it a day."

He didn't seem particularly concerned with the implication that there could be _more_ metalheads in disguise running around inside Haven's walls, and Keira was still too shocked by the news to come up with anything to say. So she watched him march past her with his spray gun and head into her workshop to begin clearing out her infestation.

Shaking her head, she sat back down and waited for him to finish, thinking. It seemed unlikely that the metalheads would send too many of their own into Haven; from what she knew of the monsters, most of them lacked the intelligence to manage it, and besides, the more that _were_ here the more likely they would be found out.

Small comfort, though.

Daxter finished up within a couple of hours and presented her with a sack of skullgems as proof of a job well done. Her garage, now bug free, was safe, and he hopped up onto her workbench as she poked around just to double check. No sense leaving even one of those things scuttling around if they could help it, though Dax seemed almost offended that she would even look.

"Bagged'em all, baby. I've been workin' this job for almost a year- believe me when I say I kill bugs faster'n a drunk falling off a zoomer."

"That's...vivid." Daxter just grinned at her, and despite herself she cracked a smile. "So are you going to head back now?"

"Eh, Osmo's gotten a lotta work out of me already and I think it's time to retire. Besides, hangin' around the stadium is a lot more likely to get me ladies than with that old geezer."

Keira folded her arms and cocked her head. "That 'old geezer' gave you a livelihood, from the sound of it."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." He sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, glancing out the door towards his vehicle. "I guess I gotta return the scooter, at least."

"I'll give you a lift."

–

Osmo was a strange man who talked a lot about bug infestations 'back in the day', but he charged her fairly and that was really all Keira cared about at the moment. He took the news of Daxter's resignation well, at least once the ottsel pointed out that his son _did_ have potential, and wished him luck with his future jobs, whatever they were.

"Yeesh, I thought he'd _never_ stop talking." Daxter grumbled, hopping up onto the handlebars of Keira's personal zoomer. "What is it with old people and yakking so much?" That got her to roll her eyes.

"At least he was polite." She offered, starting up the zoomer and heading off into traffic.

"Yeah, better than old logger-the-head ever was, that's for sure."

Keira glanced down at Daxter and hesitated; she knew he'd never really gotten along with her father, not even when he'd been young and alone, but she still wondered if he'd kept an eye out for him. Jak, definitely, given that they'd been inseparable, but her father was another story.

"Hey, Dax, did you ever...?"

"No. Never saw ancient green. Or Jak either." His voice lost its playful tone, and he hunkered down further against the zoomer. "Honestly? I think I'm lucky to have just found you."

"I see." That was disheartening, but she hadn't really been expecting anything else. Two years was a long time to look for people but it hadn't been like she'd had a whole lot of luck finding the others, either. Daxter seemed to pick up on her drop in mood, though, because he rapped his knuckles against the headlight of her zoomer.

"Seems like you've been doin' well, though. A garage 'n everything." He grinned back at her. "Even better- you're a racing mechanic. Betcha get a lotta work with that sort of gig, 'specially with the tournament coming up. You always were good with all this tech stuff. Must be pretty awesome, huh?"

His tone was back to being light, and she managed a smile as she brought her zoomer down to glide towards the stadium walkway. Count on Daxter to keep things from getting too depressing. Gosh, she'd missed him. "Yeah! It, ah, it definitely has its moments."

And some not-so-great moments, too. Given that racing was the biggest sport in the city there was a lot of shady dealings that went on around it, and in Haven City the one with his hands in the most pies was Krew. So when they returned to her workshop and found a message waiting for them, in the form of one of Krew's men, Keira couldn't say she was entirely surprised.

The man looked up when they approached and he straightened up from where he'd been leaning by her door, folding his arms to look more imposing. Keira glared at him and marched past him with her zoomer, much to his obvious consternation. Daxter scampered past him with far more wariness.

"What does that creep want _now_, Mog?" Keira parked her vehicle in the corner of the shop and turned to face her unwelcome guest, hands on her hips. "If this is about his last shipment of parts, tell him I've already left it at his warehouse."

"Krew ain't askin' about the parts. He jus' wanted me to talk to ya about the upcoming races."

"What about them?"

"Jus' a friendly reminder not to work too hard on any zoomer's besides the ones of the racers he bets on. Wants to make sure they have the edge."

"I got it." It went against a lot of her personal morals to have to agree but the fact of the matter was, Krew could make her life here so much harder than it already was. She had to look out for her own skin, as selfish as it sounded, and if giving a select few racers the advantage if they chose to hire her meant being secure for another season, then so be it. "Now get _out_. I've got work to do."

Mog ignored her, staring down at Daxter now. "What's with the rat? You get a new pet?"

"_Excuse_ me?" Daxter hopped up onto the workbench so he could more easily meet Mog's eyes. "Who're you calling _pet_, you big smelly yakkow? Why don't you say that to my face instead of- mph!" Whatever insult he'd been trying to say was cut off as Keira quickly clapped her hand over his snout. Mog glowered at the ottsel, then at her.

"It talks?"

"A lot, yeah. Get _out_, Mog." She waved him off with her free hand. "Don't make me call the Commander out here." The large man put his hands up, taking a step back at the threat.

"I got it, I got it. Just don't forget what Krew says, 'kay?" Without further ado he turned around and left, letting the garage door fall shut behind him. With a sigh, Keira let go of Daxter and ignored his indignant spluttering. It was always tiring having to deal with Krew's thugs, no matter how briefly, but she really did have things she needed to get done that day.

"What the hell was all of that, anyway?" Daxter muttered, smoothing the fur on his face and watching her duck around the curtain that hid her long-term project from the main part of her garage. "You 'n old greenhorn always hated cheaters, and here you are _working_ for one?"

"I _can't _be picky with people like Krew, Daxter. If I don't do what he wants then he can ruin everything I've worked for."

"Just doesn't seem like the Keira I know and love." He grumbled, hopping off the workbench to follow her through the curtain. "Seems like this place is- hey, is that what I think it is?"

The Rift Rider was nearly complete. Two years of on and off working, entirely from memory, had left Keira exhausted but pleased. Daxter was staring at it now, blinking twice, before hopping up onto the chassis to get a better look at it.

"Sheesh, you ever take a break from tinkering?"

"This is our way home. I couldn't just give up on it, and since I'm pretty sure there aren't any Rift Rider dealerships around here I had to build it myself."

"From scratch?"

She tapped the gear that still sat on the twine necklace, nodding. "From everything I could save, but yeah, mostly. Do you know how hard it is to find all the Precursor artifacts I needed? It's part of why I have to do things for Krew now. Every Precursor-related object tends to go through him before it hits any of the markets, so I had to make some deals for the more specialized stuff."

"And if you don't stick to the deal and do things for him-"

"He runs me out of business, yeah." Keira sighed again, frowning down at the hood of the time-machine. "I don't like this place. It's dirty, and crowded, and a lot of people here are really creepy and greedy. But it's not done, and even if it were, we _can't_ leave without Jak and my father."

Daxter snorted. "I agree with you about _Jak_."

"Daxter."

"But yeah, I'm with ya. Except I haven't seen either of'em in ages. So where do we start?" Keira looked up from the chassis to him. Surely he wasn't serious. If she'd known where to look then she would've been _searching there_. But she supposed they did need a plan. Just somewhere to begin.

"I guess we can start searching the city more thoroughly?" She shrugged and pulled on her work gloves, grabbing her welding torch and mask, and kneeling down to continue her work. "I'll admit that there are a couple of places I haven't explored a lot, and with you around we can cover a couple of sectors in a day, maybe. See if there's any sign of either of them." She paused in her work to flip up her mask and smile at him. "At least with us together we're already halfway there."

Daxter grinned back at her. "Works for me. Say, got any grub? I'm _starving_."

"There's a fridge in the back corner of the shop." Was her reply, flipping the mask back into place and muffling her words a little. "Help yourself." The sound of Daxter's feet hitting the floor and moving out of the alcove let her know he was taking her at her word.

For several long minutes after that the only things she was aware of were the sounds of the torch welding together sections of the chassis, the sparks flying from the metal. Comforting, familiar sensations. And the very new realization that she was no longer alone. Daxter came and went from the alcove, watching her work for a few minutes before growing bored and wandering off to look through the rest of her space. She didn't mind, just glad to have the company. Just trying to get used to the fact that she _had_ company.

Eventually, though, he got her attention by putting shaking her shoulder a little. She blinked and shut off the torch, flipping the mask up again; zoning out while working was something she was very used to, so it was a little jarring to have someone around that could bring her out of it so abruptly.

"Mm?"

"Some Guard came 'n left this on your door. Figured you'd wanna take a loot at it." He held out a flyer, emblazoned with the Baron's insignia, which she frowned at the sight of. Some sort of notice from the palace, then? Surely she hadn't done anything to warrant that kind of attention. Pulling off her work gloves, she took it from him and flipped it further open.

"It's... notice for an announcement, to be held tomorrow morning at the stadium." She murmured, flipping it over to read the finer print. "The Baron himself is coming out, apparently."

"He's coming off his high throne for once?" Daxter scoffed. "Must be pretty important." Keira caught him eyeing the pile of rags in a box that was just conveniently ottsel-sized, almost nest-like, and she poked his chest lightly.

"Attendance is _required_, by the way."

"Ugh. Fine. At least we can keep an eye out for Jak 'n the old green one, if everyone _has_ to show up. But I'm sure as hell gonna catch a few z's before we run through any crowds tomorrow. Gotta catch up on my beauty sleep 'n all that." He slumped a little and folded his arms, though he smiled again when she laughed.

"Then let's get you all set up, huh? I get the feeling tomorrow's gonna be a long day anyway." A very long day indeed.


End file.
